FAQs

Q: How do I get an API Key?

Contact the Nectar team at [email protected] or request a demo here.

Q: Do you have documentation on your methodology?

We provide information on our data schema and definitions in the Getting started guide. Overall, our goal is to provide the highest fidelity usage data in a format that makes it easy for downstream analysis.

Q: Are you SOC 2 compliant?

We are working with Vanta and Johanson Group to work through a SOC 2 Type 1 and Type 2 audit. We always follow industry best practices and keep all sensitive information encrypted at rest and in transit using an 128-bit AES encryption key. Any credential information is additionally salted in the encryption process. Our authentication provider is managed by Okta.

How do you connect to utility accounts with 2FA or MFA?

We use a browser technology to integrate with any website regardless of authentication scheme. It's the first time it's ever been done and it works like magic. At Nectar, we call it a magic link. See the Magic links and iframe integration guide.

Q: What happens when Nectar doesn't have my utility company yet?

Nectar uses a fundamentally different approach compared to traditional integration companies. You can still connect your account via Magic links and iframe integration or Create Basic Utility Account Connection because the Nectar system uses urls to connect to and identify utility companies. Nectar can dynamically search utility companies by url and validate credentials in the background.

Today, Nectar's technology has allowed it to generally validate credentials to any utility company in the world with this approach. On the utility bill automation front (which is a different technology from utility credential validation), Nectar supports a large volume of utility companies worldwide.

In short, if Nectar doesn't support your utility company, you can still connect it via the url always. Then the Nectar system will detect that a new utility connection is requested and will immediately start building the integration on the fly. Our utility integration factory can build out integrations to utility companies in the US and internationally within 5 business days. We use state-of-the-art browser automation tools coupled with multimodal models to allow our system to dynamically understand how a new utility website is structured and where the data is located.

Q: Do you support utility companies in APAC? What about bills using non-roman characters?

Yes. We have customers in Singapore, Australia, and China. Our system uses language agnostic multimodal modals and have been battle tested with a multitude of languages.

Q: How does pricing work?

Nectar charges per document / bill processed. If you are unsure how your team might leverage Nectar, we provide a trial environment where you can experiment with limited utility account connections and documents. In addition, Nectar provides Sandboxed Utility Accounts for testing.

Q: What if my utility bills come through email?

While it's not available on the Nectar API, the Nectar platform can integrate with clients' emails via inbox forwarding rules. We recommend carbon accounting platforms and energy managers work directly with end clients to collect the bills in one centralized repository. Then Nectar can accept pdf and png documents via API for processing. See Submit Document.

Q: Do you handle waste and fuel data?

Yes. We handle excel sheets, manifest reports, and even recycling data. Today, Nectar can process electricity, solar, water (including sewage), waste, fuel, and gas data.